Syracuse University, SUNY ESF rank among best schools for B students

Peter Chen / The Post-StandardHigh school students from Pennsylvania, Texas and Florida tour the Syracuse University quad, behind them is Hendricks Chapel.

High school students with average grades who are seeking an above-average college have two ideal options in Central New York, according to a new list compiled by U.S. News and World Report.

The "A+ Schools for B Students" list is made up of 300 colleges and universities with strong ratings in the 2013 U.S. News Best College rankings that "accept a significant number of students with nonstratospheric transcripts," U.S. News said. It also looks at the school's average freshman retention rate, an important indicator of student satisfaction.

Both Syracuse University and the SUNY College of Environment Science and Forestry (SUNY ESF) ranked in this year's top 10 for national universities on the list.

Syracuse University, which has a U.S. News Best Colleges rank of 58, ranked third on the list of "A+ Schools for B Students" behind Fordham and Pepperdine. Its acceptance rate in the fall of 2011 was 49.4 percent and the middle half of its students' scored between 1050-1270 on their SAT.

The significantly smaller SUNY ESF ranked tenth on the list with a U.S. News rank of 77 and a 39.7 percent acceptance rate in fall 2011. The middle half of ESF students scored between 1100-1270 on their SAT, U.S. News said.

Last week, Syracuse University was named 144th overrall in the U.S. News "Alumni Factor" ranking system, which focuses more on which schools have the most successful alumni. It also takes into account student-faculty ratios, graduation rates and the cost of attendance.

For the students who aren't as concerned with academics, Syracuse also ranks tenth on a new list of the nation's best party schools published in the Princeton Review's 2013 edition of "The Best 377 Colleges."